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Dear all
A hundred years ago… in a way the
week’s most telling event, the Second Battle Of The Isonzo began July 18-August
3 or possibly 10, according to different sources), a couple of weeks after the
first “concluded”. This represented the continuing attempt by the Italian Army
to beat Austria-Hungary forces back from a river bank in Slovenia and Italy.
Winners largely through overwhelming numbers – 250,000 to 78,000 – in terrible
hand-to-hand fighting between two ill-equipped soldieries, the Italians
suffered 41,800 casualties, their foes 46,600. However, the victory hardly
proved conclusive, being followed by 10 further Battles Of The Isonzo through
to November 1917…
While
the Western Front moved small but deadly distances to and fro, in Eastern
Europe a big Austro-German offensive (July 13 onwards) made advances against
the Russian Army across Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania.
In
Gallipoli, a mainly British attack at Achi Baba Nullah (12, dubbed “Bloody
Valley”) took some Turkish trenches – casualties: British 3,100, French 800,
Turkish 9,000. A Major D. Yuille, 1/4th Royal Scots Fusiliers wrote later: “Unless one has
seen it there is no imagination that can picture a belt of land some 400 yards
wide converted into a seething hell of destruction”.
Meanwhile...
at Ghajn
Tuffieha, on the north-west coast of Malta, the thousand men of the 2/1st
City Of London Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, having sweated buckets on an 80°F
march to the new camp, found themselves in a paradise of a place. Mostly London
poor boys – including
my father, Private Sam Sutcliffe, his older brother Ted
(both underage volunteers, still 16 and 18 respectively), and their pals from
Edmonton – the Battalion had never experienced anything like it. Then a
first-night rainstorm knocked most of their tents down… but they soon dried
out.
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Their underlying phoney-war feelings continued.
In Malta since early February, they’d trained endlessly. Sam had
become an expert shot and also a specialist Signaller. But, very aware of the
incoming Gallipoli wounded and dead (their previous camp being instructively
located alongside Pembroke Cemetery), they constantly wondered… what next?
Still,
while they could, they enjoyed the “tourist” side of this strange life – and please
do consider that many of this working-class generation of men and boys,
including my father, would never travel abroad again after WW1. Sam writes:
‘That first night was a bad start at the new camp, but
several happy weeks followed. Work hours were now strictly observed so we
performed only the lightest duties during the hottest part of the day. The
officers’ apparent policy of exhausting the men for the sake of, supposedly,
toughening them up had ended and everyone had now come to recognise that the
hours of darkness were not necessarily best dedicated to sleep alone. If we
trained during the evening and the early part of the night we could, with clear
consciences, sleep, doze, float in the sea or loll about in the sun during the
day – which we often did for hours on end.’
Then, some fresh company
from another new and exotic culture turned up to further enliven the day. And,
finally, for Sam came a new duty which almost felt like the real thing –
although at first he allowed him to be distracted from matters military… by a
girl. He was still a Scout/choirboy virgin adolescent after all, as he recalls:
‘We Signallers did further training, often with Maori pals
from the New Zealand (Maori) Pioneer Battalion*, who had lately arrived in
Malta. Parties of four or six of us were sent away to defence points around the
island for periods of one or two weeks.
Typical of such
observation posts was one on a headland by Salina Bay**. A group of Signallers,
Maoris and Maltese Army engineers lodged there in a stone tower***. We
maintained contact with a section of soldiers camped somewhat inland. If we saw
anything suspicious at sea or ashore, we could signal to them, or to Naval
Headquarters near Valletta, for search or arrest of the suspects.
At all times, day
and night, a Signaller was on duty on top of that tower. One evening, when
doing my stint, I relieved the boredom by watching an old man and a young girl
working in their very small plantation not far off. A small building – one room
or at most two – was their home. It must have been uncomfortably hot inside
for, as twilight briefly warned of night’s approach, the girl came out, placed
an old pillow on a heap of dried straw just outside the door of the hovel, and
lay down.
Earlier, in full
daylight, I had observed the poor, old, shapeless, black dress she wore; now it
functioned as her nightdress. Our family had known severe hardship but here, on
this lovely island, poverty seemed more out of place. Yet I perceived
advantages which were hers: she would not have to endure periods of bitterly
cold weather and occasional days with no fuel to provide any warmth; if, at
times, she and granddad had no money to buy food, they could always find
something to eat on their own land – a sugar melon, a few grapes, or a hunk
from one of the huge pumpkins growing in the plantation – and, withal, they had
the blessed warmth of the sun most days of the year.
If the possibility
of sharing her natural couch occurred to me, it must have been immediately
rejected. The soiled, probably smelly, old dress, the dirty, bare, horny-soled
feet and the easily imagined, unwashed body must have been powerful deterrents,
but in any case the principles regarding correct human relationships instilled
by dear old Frusher**** still held strong magic for me… And there was the old
man to reckon with, even if one’s advances were coupled with the purest
motives…
As darkness took
over from the bright sun, which sustained the day’s heat until the last moment,
I gave my attention to the job in hand.’
* They
trained in Egypt, then moved to Malta, says Wikipedia, before fighting at
Gallipoli – landing at Anzac Cove, July 3, 1915 – and on the Somme from August
1916; during World War I, 2,227 men served in the Battalion, 336 of them died,
and 734 were wounded; in the military, “pioneer” means specialising in
engineering and construction – “sapper” is the British Army equivalent.
** Salinas
Bay: across from Ghajn Tuffieha on the north-east of the island.
*** The Knights Of Malta,
the renowned/notorious Roman Catholic military order founded in 1099; in 1530
King Charles 1 of Spain, but in his role as King of Sicily, “gave” Malta to the
Knights when their crusading in the Holy Land petered out; they built many defensive
stone towers in the 17th century.
**** Sam’s
scoutmaster/choirmaster/vicar and piano teacher too, back home in Edmonton –
which added up to his revered mentor regarding life in general.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Night-time
alert, the Sergeant sits on a thorn bush and lookout Sam gets shot at for the
first time – by Maltese person unknown!
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